


what do you need to say?

by thaliagrayce



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Jason Starts To Remember, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Or Is It?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24566569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thaliagrayce/pseuds/thaliagrayce
Summary: Jason Grace doesn't remember his entire past yet, but he's got a gut feeling that there's something missing from his interactions with the son of Hades. He's learned that his gut is usually right.Or, the Cupid chapters, rewritten.
Relationships: Nico di Angelo/Jason Grace
Comments: 5
Kudos: 163





	what do you need to say?

**Author's Note:**

> Does this count as a fix-it fic? I think this counts as a fix-it fic.
> 
> Piper and Jason never actually got together bc they didn't know each other and that's stupid. Also Piper's a lesbian. They're still best friends, though. This was from a prompt I got on tumblr and then accidentally turned into the longest fic I've actually written (?!) so I hope y'all like it!

Jason hadn’t been expecting the man to turn into the wind, but he was too used to life at this point to be surprised by it. He could track where he went—barely—and started pursuit, gesturing to Nico to follow him. He tried not to let the prickling feeling of Nico’s eyes on his back distract him too much.

He still wasn’t sure why, back on the ship, he’d agreed so quickly to Nico’s logic when he’d said that the two of them had to make this stop alone. Piper had offered to come along mostly for his benefit, he knew, and he was grateful to his friend for looking out for him, but he couldn’t deny that he almost felt relieved when Nico had shot her down. He’d told himself that it was because he wanted an opportunity to figure his newest teammate out for himself instead of relying on Hazel’s familial loyalty and Percy’s cautionary tales.

The truth was more complicated. Since he first made contact with other Romans, people who had met him before, he’d grown more and more uneasy with how different their memories of him were from the person he felt at his core. His gut told him that something didn’t add up, even from the start. By now, he only remembered bits and pieces of his time in Camp Jupiter—a few interactions with Reyna, parts of senate meetings that all blended together, hours spent training both with his cohort and by himself—but it was enough. His gut had been right. The loyal Roman Jason hadn’t fit in as well as everyone thought; no matter the place, Jason hadn’t ever felt comfortable with the weight of expectation that seemed to follow him around. He learned to trust his intuition when it was saying things about his past, even if he didn’t have the memory to back it up yet.

He was nervous around the son of Hades in a way that he wasn’t around most people. He would almost feel ashamed about that if his gut didn’t tell him that he had a good reason to be—a reason entirely separate from Percy’s stories. He had no memories to back it up yet, but something told him that this wasn’t the first time he had met Nico di Angelo.

The crumbling pink wall of Diocletian’s palace rose in front of them. The man made of air had gone inside without worrying about the ticket booth several blocks away. Or doors, for that matter. They had to get inside before they lost him.

“Hold on,” Jason said. He ignored the swoop of his stomach and the buzzing in his fingertips and wrapped his arms around Nico’s waist, then willed the winds to boost them up over the wall.

Nico made a noise that on anyone else, Jason would describe as a yelp, but that seemed too… Nico di Angelo wouldn’t yelp, even if he threw his arms around Jason’s shoulders and held just over the threshold of too tight. The sound was muffled in part by his own sleeve and part by Jason’s chest as he buried his head in between the two of them.

Nico pushed away as soon as they landed back on solid ground, face pink. Jason felt the loss of warmth acutely and missed it, despite the heat of the day around them. He filed the realization into the mental drawer labeled “things to figure out later” as soon as it crossed his mind.

“The peristyle,” Nico said. “This was the entrance to Diocletian’s private residence.” He scowled at Jason and turned away from the sun, throwing his face into shadow. He might have done that on purpose. “And please, I don’t like being touched. Don’t ever grab me again.”

Jason tensed with the implicit threat underlying those words. His heart tugged—he was a very physical person, but he should have known that not everyone appreciated casual touch as much as he did. In fact, something told him that he should have known that Nico, specifically, didn’t like people touching him. For half a second, the Nico in front of him flickered with the scenery. One moment he was looking gaunt and sweaty in his aviator jacket in the ruins of Diocletian’s palace. The next, he was standing a few inches shorter outside of the senate building in New Rome, wearing an inky black toga and matching scowl, half-hidden in shadows.

Confirmation, then. The memory was only a flash and contained almost no new information, but Jason was absolutely certain that he had met Nico before. He couldn’t tell how he felt about that, and by the time he blinked away the image and the feelings it brought completely, Nico had already started to move on. He was heading to a staircase in the corner that led down into the darkness.

Jason jogged a few steps to catch up. He held his hands up, palms out, when Nico turned to look at him. “Got it, no touching. I’m sorry.” Nico blinked at him curiously, but thankfully didn’t mention Jason’s lapse in presence.

Nico looked like he might have been about to speak, but cut himself off suddenly as a breeze rushed past. In front of them, at the entrance to the steps, a single rust-colored feather floated to the ground. The two boys looked to each other, hands subconsciously reaching for their swords.

Nico’s face broke out into a grin, and Jason noticed for the first time—or, maybe, for the first time that he could remember—that his teeth were a little crooked. It was humanizing on this mysterious, dangerous boy. Jason couldn’t figure out the feeling that jumped in his chest at the sight, so he ended up settling on “unsettled”.

Underground they went.

* * *

Several things about their journey to the palace of Cupid stuck out to Jason. The sudden appearance of Favonius, of course. His horrible story about killing the mortal he loved. The sensation of being turned into the wind instead of just riding it. Nico’s obvious discomfort that started when he figured out who Favonius was and only grew as they went on. Now, finally back on solid ground, Jason had the urge to reach out and grab Nico’s armor his shoulder or something, help steady him. He glanced at Nico’s hands, white-knuckled and shaking. He wanted to take one of them, just as a reassurance. He didn’t, though. Nico didn’t like touch, they weren’t there yet. Maybe someday.

He had to do _something_ , though. Nico was even paler than when they first got him out of that jar, dark eyes wide. He could say something—

_SO._

Or he could help actually complete the task at hand and help return to the ship as fast as possible. Right.

_YOU COME TO CLAIM THE SCEPTER._

Nico was at his back now, and Jason could only barely feel the warmth of his body through the waves of unearthly chill that he was radiating. Jason tried his hardest to put out comforting vibes, but he seriously doubted that was anywhere close to a Jupiter kid power.

“Cupid!” Jason squinted around the ruins to no avail. The voice seemed to come out of thin air. “Where are you?”

Without warning, some invisible force slammed into him and sent him flying down a crumbling set of stairs. He landed hard in a cellar and coughed at the cloud of dust that billowed up around him.

_YOU REALLY THINK YOU CAN PIN ME DOWN WHEN YOU DON’T EVEN REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE? YOU ARE NOT WORTH MY ATTENTION AS YOU ARE, JASON GRACE._

Nico scrambled down the steps through the haze of dust that Jason had inadvertently kicked up. “You okay?”

Jason noticed that some of the dust clung to Nico’s dark hair as he took the offered hand and pulled himself up. There was a bit of something stuck in his thick eyelashes that had to be driving him crazy.

“Yeah,” he said instead of pointing that out, dropping Nico’s hand to dust off his jeans. “Just got sucker punched.” He spent a little to much time looking at his hands after he was done. Cupid was right, Jason barely knew who he was between his Roman life and his Greek one—but somehow he didn’t think that was all Cupid was talking about.

A laugh answered them, and Jason felt the air ripple for half a second. He threw up his gladius on instinct, just in time to deflect a three foot long monster of an arrow that would have pierced Nico’s chest.

Nico grabbed his arm and raced back up the steps and out of the basement. Two seconds after they were out, a limestone column collapsed over the entrance.

Nico growled in frustration. “We just want the scepter! We’re trying to stop Gaea. Are you on the gods’ side or not?”

Another arrow flashed toward Nico’s feet and he stumbled away from it, seeming to forget that he was still holding on to Jason’s arm.

_LOVE DOESN’T PICK SIDES, YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT._

Jason stumbled after him, his vision swimming. Another flashback—Nico in the principa as the legion prepared for war games. His hair was shorter, but Jason could remember that it seemed long back then. He had thought it suited Nico. He had… He had been trying to convince Nico to join the war games, to practice with the legion and teach them a thing or two. He was the first child of the Big Three Jason had ever met, aside from himself. Hazel would be a fearsome ally and opponent, he could already tell, but she was still a new recruit and could barely hold a sword correctly at that point.

A strand of hair fell into his eyes, and the memory of Jason clasped his hands behind his back to keep himself from reaching out and tucking it behind his ear.

“It could be fun, you know. Probably wouldn’t even last that long, if we were on the same side.”

Nico had looked up at him then, and Jason’s heart stuttered—both in the memory and in reality. His eyes were as dark as his sword and shone with just as much hidden strength and promised danger.

“Than you for the offer, but I don’t pick sides, Praetor Grace.” Memory Jason felt disappointment in his gut as Nico moved closer to the shadows, letting them reach out for him. “I’m just here for Hazel, you know that.”

He did, and was hoping for something else anyway.

Current Jason snapped back in place as he tripped over a broken column, nearly pulling Nico down with him. Nico finally realized that he was still holding on and dropped Jason’s arm as if it were too cold to touch. It made Jason’s stomach swoop in the same way that it had been since they left the ship, but Jason was beginning to understand that it probably wasn’t because the boy creeped him out. Maybe Cupid really _was_ talking about more than just memory.

The air right in front of them rippled again, and Jason was still too dazed from his sudden memory to be able to figure out what it meant for them. Nico cried out in pain as an arrow materialized in his sword arm. He reached up for the shaft and the whole thing dissolved, leaving a jagged hole in his jacket and absolutely no blood. His face shone with rage.

“Enough games!” Nico growled. “Show yourself!”

_IT IS A COSTLY THING, TO LOOK ON THE FACE OF TRUE LOVE._

Jason had to jump back as another limestone column came crashing down, this time cutting him off from Nico entirely. He could see the other boy through the rubble and the cloud of dust, and made a jerking motion with his thumb—he couldn’t get over the column unnoticed, but maybe he could sneak around the god. He started creeping forward as Cupid launched into a monologue about his wife.

His mission drew him further away from Nico than he was comfortable with, and the realization of that sank into him gradually. At the start of the mission, he had convinced himself to go in order to gauge Nico’s trustworthiness, to see whether he was as shifty as Percy seemed to think. By now, he was reluctant to go more than fifteen feet away from him.

In a stroke of both luck and great misfortune, Cupid appeared to have been completely serious when he said that Jason wasn’t worth his attention earlier; luck because it allowed him to sneak around to a point where he was fairly certain he could get a clean shot without much trouble. Misfortune because all of the god’s attention was solely on Nico, who was looking more harried by the second. Jason felt a twinge of guilt; he had left Nico on distraction duty with someone who clearly liked toying with people’s emotions. He reminded himself to apologize later, but for now, he just needed the god to say one more thing and he would have him as good as pinned.

“I’ve been to Tartarus and back,” Nico snarled. “You don’t scare me.”

_I SCARE YOU VERY, VERY MUCH._

_Gotcha_. Jason thrust his gladius to the sky and tasted copper. He closed his eyes against the blinding flash, but could do nothing against the energy that raced through his blood and set his nerves on high alert. When he opened his eyes again, there was a smoking crater about thirty feet from Nico, where Jason had placed Cupid. All sound had died in the aftermath of the thunder clap.

Jason met Nico’s eyes across the arena and it was like looking in a mirror; he could see the same incredulous hope in Nico’s eyes, their chests heaved in tandem. It almost felt a little too easy.

_OH?_

A force like a battering ram hit Jason in the chest, shoving him to the ground and knocking the wind out of him. His sword skittered across the broken paving stones and came to rest around three feet outside of his reach.

_PERHAPS I WAS WRONG. YOU LEARN QUICKLY, JASON GRACE._

He heard a menacing _crack_ off to his left, and rolled out of the way just in time to avoid the wall that crumbled into the space he had been occupying. His muscles trembled from a combination of exertion, adrenaline, and lack of oxygen. His chest heaved for air but came up empty.

_YOU MAY BE WORTHY OF MY ATTENTION AFTER ALL._

He tried to force himself to breathe with his powers, but abandoned the attempt midway through as a microwave-sized chunk of limestone flew at his head at a speed that would make major league pitchers jealous. He threw himself to the right as much as he could from his position, which still left him close enough to be pelted by tiny shards of broken floor. Darkness started to creep in along the edges of his vision. His arms gave out on him and he fell back to the ground. He needed air.

“Stop it!” Nico stepped into the space between them, lips curled back in a snarl. “It’s me you want. Leave him alone!” His chin tilted up, defiant, and a gust of wind whipped around him, fluttering his hair and his jacket and—

Air rushed into Jason’s lungs again. He breathed in until he was lightheaded, staring at the protective image Nico projected. Nico was so wrong, Cupid wasn’t just here for him. Jason wanted to punch the god in his monstrously beautiful face, as soon as he stopped shaking.

_THEN FACE ME. BE HONEST._

“Just give us Diocletian’s scepter! We don’t have time for games!” Nico snarled.

_GAMES?_ Cupid struck, slapping Nico sideways into a granite pedestal. _LOVE IS NO GAME. IT IS NO FLOWERY SOFTNESS._ Nico was tossed backward as if he weighed no more than a kitten, and he landed in a pile of rubble hard enough that Jason could hear the clattering of stones. _IT IS HARD WORK—A QUEST THAT NEVER ENDS. IT DEMANDS EVERYTHING FROM YOU, ESPECIALLY THE TRUTH. ONLY THEN DOES IT YIELD REWARDS._

Jason shoved himself upright, desperate to get over to Nico. He looked angry, struggling to get out of the rocks he had been thrown into. There was a scrape on his forehead, dripping down into his eyes, and—

Jason’s head rushed and the world tilted around him. He dropped to his knees as quickly as he could and sucked in a breath, shaking as his vision cleared out.

Fine. So he wasn’t completely recovered from getting the wind knocked out of him, standing was a bad idea. He could still crawl.

He got about five feet closer to Nico before a column toppled in front of him—one that he could have sworn wasn’t even there before. He reared back to avoid being hit and looked up to see Nico dive out of the way of a flying rock, tucking into a roll and coming up smoothly onto his feet.

Jason turned to go around the end of the column, but he didn’t even get a foot away before something else came crashing down in front of him. He looked urgently to where Nico was fighting against something he couldn’t see, and was hit with two realizations: he wouldn’t be able to get to him in any helpful capacity, and he was _absolutely desperate_ to be next to him.

“Nico, what does this guy _want_ from you?”

_TELL HIM, NICO DI ANGELO. TELL HIM YOU ARE A COWARD, AFRAID OF YOURSELF AND YOUR FEELINGS._

Nico looked more furious than Jason had ever seen him before. Every shadow in the ruins of the palace gravitated toward him, like hands reaching out, desperate to touch him. The stones at his feet rumbled and cracked as if something was moving in the earth beneath, trying to push its way through. His eyes were tinged with red, and for a second, Jason thought he might have some wild new aura of power going on, until he saw the way his eyes shined more than usual. Jason’s heart relocated to somewhere around his knees. He had never seen Nico cry before, he didn’t need all of his memories to know that. A skeletal hand clawed its way out of the dirt next to Nico’s boot.

_WILL YOU HIDE AMONG THE DEAD, AS YOU ALWAYS DO?_ Cupid was taunting him. Jason snarled at the laugh he heard in the booming words.

Nico let loose a guttural scream and the rocks at his feet crumbled as whole skeletons dragged themselves out of the dirt, carrying ancient weapons and clad in tattered remnants of their time. Jason had enough time to see three of them move in the same direction before the first wave hit him hard enough to leave him gasping.

The intrusion of memories that weren’t his own felt like his mind was a bookshelf, and someone had just shoved something too big for the space allowed into it. Pressure built up between his ears as images of a different life flashed through his mind. He saw from Nico’s perspective, standing next to a girl who had the same dark eyes and olive skin as Nico. Percy Jackson stood in front of them, Riptide drawn, brown skin glowing in its light, keeping them safe from a manticore. He’d been the first demigod that Nico had ever seen in action, Mythomagic brought to life.

Later, at camp, Percy took Nico’s arm as he promised to keep Bianca safe. Jason could feel Nico’s conviction, the absolute unshakable certainty that Percy was trustworthy. He was a hero, and heroes couldn’t be wrong. He had looked into Percy’s green eyes and felt a fluttering warmth in his chest. The pressure in Jason’s head turned into pain, and his stomach turned. He wasn’t so sure the two things were related.

He saw the moment Percy returned to tell Nico that Bianca was dead, felt the raw anger and grief firsthand as Nico screamed. The betrayal felt larger than anything else Nico had ever felt, but he still couldn’t leave Percy to the skeletons. He’d created a chasm to send them back to hell before they could hurt Percy, then felt nauseous at the amount of power that took, the amount of power he had inside him. He glanced at Percy once more and ran.

Jason saw dozens of other scenes with Percy, each full of intense emotion. His skin felt clammy, and he was only marginally aware of what was going on in real life—the summoned skeletons had latched onto something invisible and were wrestling it to the ground—but the images in his head took all of his attention. Percy smiling Nico’s way, showing his dimples, before Nico realized that Annabeth was behind him. Percy holding on to a piece of blue cake on a fire escape in front of some brick building, surprised to see Nico, inviting him in. A glimpse of Percy coming out of the canoe lake at camp before Nico looked away. Jason’s head felt like it was going to burst. His own chest was a mess of pain and longing, caught up in Nico’s memories.

The pain in his head stopped abruptly and the scene in his head shifted. He was in the stands of the training arena in New Rome, looking down at a practice fight on the main grounds. It was Nico fighting, he realized with a start—this was his own memory. His opponent was Hazel, and Jason could see the smile on her face even from this far away. She circled around him until her back was to Jason, and Jason could see Nico’s face clearly. He looked happy, genuinely happy, for the first time since Jason had met him. His hair was half tied up, the other half not long enough to fit in the ponytail. He was smiling. Jason’s heart tripped over itself. This was the first time Jason had ever seen Nico smile, he realized. His teeth shone and it was a little predatory, honestly. His eyes were darker than anything Jason had ever seen, and like this, they glinted with something close to mischief. His smile carved little lines in his face next to them. He was in a well-guarded stance and even though he was clearly distracted by whatever Hazel was saying, it was equally clear that he wouldn’t be caught by surprise if she lunged. He was an excellent swordsman, he was powerful, he was…

He was beautiful. Jason’s throat felt a little dry. Nico di Angelo was beautiful right now, with sweat sticking some escaped strands of hair to his forehead. He was beautiful when he was sitting across from Jason in senate meetings, somehow managing to look both bored and respectful at the same time. He was beautiful on the rare few times Jason had caught up to him walking around New Rome, sunlight catching the planes of his face and the depths of his eyes. Jason was sure that there was so much more to Nico than the face he put up in public. He was the only other person who might understand the deep loneliness in Jason, the isolation that came from being his father’s son. Jason realized he didn’t want to get close to Nico just because of the Big Three solidarity.

In that moment, thirty feet away from Nico as he laughed and fought his sister, Jason would have given anything to be noticed by him, to be seen. To be loved.

The laughing Nico of his memory melted into the present version of him, still clutching his sword and facing an opponent, his mouth pressed firmly into a line, his eyes ringed with red. His face was caked with dirt save for matching tracks trailing down both cheeks.

“I…”

His voice cracked, and Jason’s heart cracked with it. He looked to Jason, fearful, and Jason realized that he wasn’t scared of Cupid, not really. He was scared of _Jason._ He was scared of the reaction. Jason swallowed the spring of hurt.

“It’s okay, Nico.” He tried to force a smile onto his face. “I get it.”

Under the pile of skeletons, Cupid became visible. He was handsome, yeah. Jason didn’t care. Cupid was watching Nico with an expression that Jason interpreted as smug.

“I had a crush on Percy. That’s it, that’s the big secret.” Nico glared at Cupid with every ounce of venom in his body. “Happy now?”

Jason busied himself with finally, finally getting to his feet. He felt like he was intruding on something. He focused on dusting himself off and tried to tune out the exchange in front of him.

“Jason Grace.” He looked up to see Cupid’s plastic-heart-red eyes staring right at him from a foot away. He hadn’t heard the god approach. Nico was clutching a scepter back where they were before, glaring at his own feet.

“You surprised me.” He tilted his head and Jason felt like he was under inspection. He fought the heartbreak and anger in his chest to keep a straight face. “Learn from this.”

The god reached out his hand to clap Jason’s shoulder, but he jerked out of his way. When Cupid looked back at him, surprised, Jason let just a _little_ bit of his Wolf Stare seep into his expression. He couldn’t shake the image of Nico crying out of his head.

“Have you said what you need to say?” Jason swallowed down a sneer. “Sir?”

Cupid had the nerve to grin. “You’re a _very_ quick study. Good.” He winked once at Jason before dissolving into nothing. Static electricity crackled at Jason’s fingertips. He shook out his hands and his head. This wasn’t about him, he wasn’t the person who had been targeted by this. He vaulted over the toppled column to get to Nico.

Nico was looking straight up when Jason got to him, blinking rapidly. He decided it might be a good idea not to mention the crying. Nico held a staff about three feet long with this marble globe on the end of it—Diocletian’s scepter. Mission complete.

“If…” Nico broke the silence and Jason almost jumped with the suddenness of it. “If the others found out—”

“If the others found out,” Jason interrupted, “you’d have that many more people to back you up and to unleash the fury of the gods on anybody who gives you trouble.” This was… familiar. He believed the words with his whole being, but they didn’t feel like his own. For a moment, he heard Reyna’s voice in his head, saying almost the same thing. Something told him that this wasn’t the first time he’d had a conversation like this.

It might have been the first time he was on this side of it, though.

Nico frowned. Jason could still feel the anger and resentment rippling off of him.

“It’s your call, though,” Jason added. “Your decision to share or not. Nobody should be outed like that.” Nico looked up at him, surprised. “I can only tell you that you’re not alone.”

Nico tilted his head, considering, before looking back down at the scepter in his hands. They both stood there for a minute, alone in the crumbling ruins of an old palace, listening to the winds.

“I don’t feel that way anymore.” Nico cleared his throat. “I mean… I gave up on Percy. I was young and impressionable, and I—I don’t…”

His voice wobbled and he cut himself off, blinking too much. Jason’s heart sank. Nico’s words weren’t very convincing, but that didn’t matter in the long run. He had already been through so much, years of isolation and hordes of secrets in his wake. How long had he been keeping this one to himself? It must have been unthinkable to share in the 1940’s, and Nico’s life hadn’t gotten much happier since then. Jason felt certain that he’d had support in his life—in this regard, at least. Reyna’s smile flashed through his mind. Nico didn’t need someone to sweep him off his feet right now, and Jason doubted that he would want it, either. What he needed was a friend.

“Nico,” he murmured. “I’ve seen a lot of brave things. But what you just did? That was maybe the bravest.”

Nico looked up uncertainly. Jason smiled.

“We should get back to the ship.”

**Author's Note:**

> And then Nico spends the rest of the book desperately fighting down a growing crush on the first person who actually saw him for who he was and supported him, instead of seeing him as the Son Of Hades or the creepy kid. Stuff happens blah blah they kiss. Yay!
> 
> Hit me up on tumblr @thaliagrayce, I love talking to people and always take requests (i might be slow about them tho)


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